ArticleJournal of epidemiology and community health2007
Social problems, primary care and pathways to help and support: addressing health inequalities at the individual level. Part I: the GP perspective.
Article in Journal of epidemiology and community health, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Toward a socio-spiritual approach? A mixed-methods systematic review on the social and spiritual needs of patients in the palliative phase of their illness.Palliative medicine · 2021Pooled it
- A systematic review of reasons for and against asking patients about their socioeconomic contexts.International journal for equity in health · 2019Pooled it
- Leveraging the Transitional Care Model Intervention to Identify and Mitigate Adverse Social Determinants of Health.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2025Article
- The role of the municipal welfare domain in palliative care: exploring the views of coordinators of Dutch regional palliative care networks.Palliative care and social practice · 2025Article
- Social Prescription Interventions Addressing Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Meta-Review Integrating On-the-Ground Resources.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Review
- Patient experience and satisfaction with symptomatic faecal immunochemical testing: an explanatory sequential mixed-methods evaluation.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2023Article
- Artificial intelligence and health inequities in primary care: a systematic scoping review and framework.Family medicine and community health · 2022Article
- Social isolation, loneliness and mental health sequelae of the Covid-19 pandemic in Parkinson's disease.International review of neurobiology · 2022Article
- Identifying patients with psychosocial problems in general practice: A scoping review.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- Identifying patients with psychosocial problems in general practice: a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2021Article
- "There is people like us and there is people like them, and we are not like them." Understating social exclusion - a qualitative study.PloS one · 2021Article
- "The state They're in": Unpicking fantasy paradigms of health improvement interventions as tools for addressing health inequalities.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2020Article
- Patient-physician communication about financial problems: A cross-sectional study among over-indebted individuals.PloS one · 2020Article
- Social Prescribing-An Effort to Apply a Common Knowledge: Impelling Forces and Challenges.Frontiers in public health · 2020Article
- The impact of care farms on quality of life, depression and anxiety among different population groups: A systematic review.Campbell systematic reviews · 2019Review
- Article
- Does a social prescribing 'holistic' link-worker for older people with complex, multimorbidity improve well-being and frailty and reduce health and social care use and costs? A 12-month before-and-after evaluation.Primary health care research & development · 2019Article
- Primary care doctors' understandings of and strategies to tackle health inequalities: a qualitative study.Primary health care research & development · 2019Article
- Article
- Delivering a primary care-based social prescribing initiative: a qualitative study of the benefits and challenges.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study aimed to describe social problems presented to general practitioners (GPs) in UK inner cities and GPs' responses; describe patients' help-seeking pathways; and consider how these pathways can be improved.
methodsThe study involved a pilot survey and follow-up qualitative interviews with patients in two inner city areas in London and Salford in 2001-2. The pilot survey involved five practices in each locality. GPs completed questionnaires on 57 people presenting with social problems. A diversity sample of 12 patients were followed up for interview.
resultsStudy results are presented in two parts. This paper focuses on the GP survey results. People were presenting with a wide range of social problems, and multiple problems were also common. Problems with welfare benefits and housing were the most common, but GPs were most likely to refer to counselling services and to a lesser extent to generic advice services. Some GPs would have preferred to refer patients to more problem-specific services but did not believe these were available.
conclusionsThe study highlights the role GPs play in helping people deal with social problems but also identifies limitations in their response to these problems. It points to the need for more integrated pathways to help and advice for social problems. Primary care can make existing pathways more visible and accessible, and create new pathways through, for example, the new commissioning role and extending the scope of social prescribing.
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